8 small Cypraea from Mauritius

[conchylinet]

Hello all,

Anyboday can help identifying these small Cypraea from Mauritius, size range of them is between 15 and 25 mm. They are from the West coast of Mauritius, Indian Ocean.

Sorry again for the bad quality of most of them.
Thank you,
Conchylinet.

<img src="http://www.badongo.com/t/640/2741452.jpg" alt="http://www.badongo.com/t/640/2741452.jpg" style="border:0" />

[conchylinet]

A bigger plate on Badongo image site:

<a href="http://www.badongo.com/pic/2741452.jpg" target="_blank"><!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.badongo.com/pic/2741452.jpg">http://www.badongo.com/pic/2741452.jpg</a><!-- m --></a>

Conchylinet

[dave r]

Hi there, yes they are very worn but I will give it a shot.
A Staphylaea staphylaea laevigata(strangely eroded!)
B Staphylaea nucleus
C ? bleached and worn Bistolida diauges
D Erronea errones bimaculata
E Cribrarula esontropia esontropia
F subfossil Bistolida owenii owenii
G ? Palmadusta clandestina passerina
H Pustularia globulus brevirostris
As well as the owenii some others could be subfossil.
Hope this has helped
Dave.

[conchylinet]

Thanks Dave,
Yes it helps a lot. What is exactly the subfossil status?
I know that some of these Cypraea come from the erosion of a small compressed sand cliff that has been artificially built up 10 or 20 years ago, some of the shells from it loose color pattern.

[dave r]

A subfossil is a term for a very old (thousand years or so) specimen that has not become a proper fossil yet. Subfossils can come from a variety of places, an ancient seabed that has become dry land for some reason; under sand on the seabed, after being exposed by a storm etc. I have an almost identical owenii to yours, and also an esontropia,  that were found when a coral reef was being dug out to extand an airport.
Any shell that is exposed to sunlight will lose it's colour pretty quickly.
Dave.